


Experimental Oneshots

by HyperKey



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: AU, Angst, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-21 13:43:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 6,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7389283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HyperKey/pseuds/HyperKey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Collection of drafts that I never finished and have no plans of finishing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Some of these might turn into longer fics, most of them probably won't.
> 
> Almost every story in here is entirely experimental. Sometimes I am too embarrassed at them to even look at them again. But I know lots of you guys love this stuff, so here it is. Feel free to comment on them!
> 
> Most of these Will be AU's, some are not proof read, and some are experiments. 
> 
> Please keep in mind that most of these are really embarrassing to me, that's the main reason why i never planned on posting these. //hides in my box

Jack flinched when the window in the kitchen suddenly shattered. Expecting an attack he was ready to fight whoever had launched it, until he noticed two boys on the road looking as if they had just done something unforgivable. He then also saw the ball that had most likely shattered the glass. The two children where no one he knew. They stared at him, both not finding any words.

One of the tugged the sleeve of the other, trying to pull him away. Jack knew they were gonna run, he didn’t look forward to chase kids through the streets, yet this window needed to be replaced, and he wasn’t in the mood to pile on yet another bill.

“Hey!” He yelled when the boys tried to bail. “You two stay here.”

The boys froze in place, both staring with wide eyes out of pale faces. At least they knew they had messed up.

Rose came downstairs, attracted by the noise. She quickly got what had happened. The ball was more than enough evidence.

“I’ll take care of it.” She sighed, picked the ball up and went outside.

Jack grabbed the broom and cleaned up the shards, wondering what Rose was telling the boys. She wouldn’t let them go just like that. Rose wasn’t that type of person.

A few minutes passed, Jack was taking out the sharp shards that were still stuck to the window so no one would get hurt. Rise returned with a piece of paper and placed it on the counter. “I’ll call their parents.”

“You think they’d just pay for a new window?”

“They have to.” Rose insisted. “Remember when John broke that one window on accident? They made us pay that too.”

Jack grunted, grabbed a roll of tape and the plastic bag Rose was handing him. “How much force do they put in these balls, shattering a window isn’t that easy, you know?”

Rose laughed. “They’re kids, they find it fun to kick them as hard as possible.”

“And break windows in the process.” The man sighed. “And if they don’t pay? We need to replace this as soon as possible… it’s way too easy for someone to get in.”

“Jack…” Rose muttered silently and placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’ll work out fine. Let me help you with this, then I call their parents.” She offered and climbed on the counter to hold the bag in place as Jack taped it on the window frame. 


	2. Chapter 2

Rose blinked into the darkness, tiredly and confused as to why she had woken up. Soon she noticed that someone was holding her hands, the grip almost too tight. Jack had his face buried in his pillow, his breath hitching and sort of strained sounding. She tried to push herself to her elbows without letting go of his hands. He had obviously taken them to ease his discomfort, but Rose couldn’t tell if this was caused by a nightmare or something else.

“Jack?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”

 He hissed silently, mumbled something into his pillow that she barely understood.

“What?”

He slowly turned his head to the side, grunted, suppressed a whine. “Phantom…pain…” he managed through his clenched teeth.

Rose grimaced. It had gotten rare that he was hit with it, still it was pretty severe everytime it did come around. She couldn’t imagine what kind of pain that was. He had tried to explain it with a headache that made the head feel a lot bigger than it was. She knew she would never understand it.

“Did you take painkillers?”

He shook his head.

“Okay. I’ll get them. Let go of my hands please?”

He hissed when he slowly unclenched his grip around her hands, felt dizzy and nauseous once his hands had nothing to focus on anymore. Rose hurried to the bathroom to get the requested items, came back with a glass of water and settled down on the bed after she had turned on the lamp on her nightstand. She sighed at the alarm clock. It was just past five. In an hour she would have gotten up anyway.

She set the items aside and carefully settled a hand on his shoulder. He grunted in response and she took her hand away again.

“Leave it there…” he mumbled.

Rose could only guess how long he had endured this pain until she had woken up. Sometimes it hit him during the day, but he wouldn’t mention it until he couldn’t bear it anymore. Sometimes she admired that, other times she found it idiotic.

She settled her hand back on his shoulder, noticed how badly he was trembling. Sometimes everything caused discomfort; he wouldn’t even be able to lie down on the bed sheets. This time he seemed to be okay with it. Rose couldn’t help but feel sorry anyway. Seeing him suffer made her stomach turn. He had suffered so much through his entire life, wasn’t it enough?

Her hand had trailed to his head, gently ran through his hair like she usually did when she hugged him or got this close.

“Can you sit up?” she asked silently, bit her lip when he gripped her shirt to get his body to move. She almost squeezed her eyes shut so she didn’t have to see his pained face. Once he was sitting he leaned against the headboard, face white as a sheet.

She handed him the glass and the painkillers, hung her shoulders when he took them and drank the water, didn’t care about how much he was spilling. Rose was about to move away to give him a new shirt, when he grasped her arm, his movements slow and heavy.

She put the glass back on the nightstand, then pulled him close. He was still trembling badly,


	3. Chapter 3

He knew he was screaming and thrashing around, but his conscious thinking had no control over his body. He couldn’t open his eyes, breathing was painful and hard. His body felt as if it had been pierced by various kinds of blades. He couldn’t get away from that pain no matter how hard he tried to. There was at least one person present, a female voice spoke frantically. He couldn’t make sense of the words, his mind too occupied with blocking the pain out. Where did it come from anyway?

His own pained wheezes reached his ears, he heard words uttered by his own voice, without him knowing he was saying anything. He didn’t order his voice to do anything.

A hand touched his face, cool, a little damp, a thumb ghosted over his cheek, lips on his forehead. Rose?

He forced his eyes open, the dim light an assault to his already overwhelmed senses.  A hand moved over his chest. There was no doubt she could feel the rapid heartbeat and the exhausted gasps for air. She said something. Too silent for him to understand, too soft. Was she talking to him at all?  Only then he realized that the pain had changed to a more bearable level. To any normal human this could still be considered agony, but to him it was almost heaven. He hoped it wouldn’t flare up again as he slowly realized what exactly had happened.

“Jack…?” Rose whispered, this time he could understand her. His mind was still hazy, sounds still muffled. It wasn’t as bad as just a few minutes ago. Rose sounded exhausted, frightened and worried all at once.

He opened his eyes, slowly, wanted to avoid the bright lights. He then noticed that Rose had turned off most of the lights. The only that was still on was her nightstand lamp. It was still in the middle of the night. He didn’t dare to move in fear of the pain forcing itself into the foreground again, but it was nice to see her.

“…What happened…?” she asked, her voice shaking, tears in her eyes.

He took a deep breath, slow, testing how much his body allowed for now. Slowly he let it out again, not sure how to explain it. It hadn’t happened for the first time, but for Rose it had been the first time to witness it. “Sometimes…“ his voice was cracking, not quite listening to what he ordered it to do. Likely side effects of what had just happened. The systems still needed to adjust. “When the systems reboot… there’s an error that causes all pain receptors to react…”

“You sure that’s what it is?” Rose asked in slight disbelief.

“Absolutely.” He whispered, slowly turned to his side and sat up. He felt dizzy, spaced out. Slightly nauseous as well. “Happens… every once in a while…”

“You’d think an error like that had been taken care of long ago.” She sounded upset now. “Why did no one fix this yet?”

He sighed,

Rose lifted an eyebrow.

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

John always thought that his father’s hands felt like any other person’s hand. Especially now that they were cold and gripped his smaller hand tightly. John wasn’t quite sure when they had gotten lost, but he knew that it was getting dark and that it was getting cold. The car was somewhere on the other side of the forest they had just left, he thought. He wasn’t sure of that anymore. The grass was high and he kept stumbling, was grateful for the man who kept pulling him up whenever his shoes got caught somewhere.

“I’m hungry…” John muttered after a moment.

Jack sighed. “I know.”

“Will we ever find home again?”

“We will. You see the lights there? Looks like a street.”

John squinted and tried to make out whatever his father was seeing, but he wasn’t tall enough. “You’d think that getting lost is impossible…” He muttered. “Because there’s always a connection anywhere!”

 Jack chuckled. “When I was your age we used maps printed on paper.”

“At least it can’t run out of batteries or lose connection!”

“That’s true.”

John grumbled. “But if you got lost how did you find back with no signal to show where you are?”

“Observing.” The man muttered. “Rivers help a lot.”

“Why didn’t you just ask for directions though?” The boy asked, stumbled once more and was yet again pulled up by his father. He felt like he wouldn’t even be able to fall if he actually tried.

He wondered why his father needed so long to actually answer such a simple question. “Or just go to a store and ask there?” He tried. Maybe the man didn’t remember what he did when he got lost.

More silence followed, the sun about to vanish from sight and take the last warming ray with it. “You know I told you where I was born?”

John frowned, not understanding why his father was changing the topic. “Africa… right?”

“Right.”

“But they have stores there too, right?”

“That’s true.”

“So?” John looked up at the man. “You could have gone into a store and ask someone to call your mom, or dad.”

The boy flinched when his father suddenly stopped. He felt as if he had said something wrong. After a moment his father began to walk again. “…I grew up in a war zone.” He said silently. “You’ve seen a movie like that… places ruined by explosions..

John fell silent. He remembered the movie his father was talking about. It had been an accident. Something he wasn’t allowed to watch, and he got hell for it from his mother. Things seemed to fall into place now.

“…Was it scary?” The boy asked.

 “I was-“ Jack stopped himself.  He wasn’t even sure why he had brought it up now. This was the worst time. Any time was the worst. His past should have been buried and forgotten long ago. This was too early. He shouldn’t have told him anything about it.

“I moved away later.”

“That’s good.” John muttered, his thoughts still lingering on what his father had said.

 

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

He wasn’t entirely sure what was going on when he woke up to a blearing noise in his head. His eyes burned, he could barely open them. It seemed to be dark around him, from what he could tell. He couldn’t move properly, a strange weight on his arms and torso.

And that terrible noise.

Moments passed until he was able to discern what the noise was. Voices. Several people inquiring about his status.

“I’m fine.” He muttered into the darkness. Fine was probably not the correct word for his current situation. “What happened…?”

 “The building exploded.” A woman replied, judging by the voice it could only be Courtney.

Things slowly fell into place. An explosion explained the ringing in his ears, and the weight on top of him was most likely debris. He needed a moment to find the energy to get his arms to move. There had been a few errors, but he was still too out of it to understand their meaning. Something shifted, Debris crashed down next to him.

“Just stay where you are-“ Kevin tried.

“I can get out myself.”

“You landed in a sewer.” The other male sighed. “Everything’s turned to rubble. We’ll get you out.”

“They got away?” Raiden then asked. The mission had been fishy the whole time.

“Probably. Look buddy, it doesn’t matter. You just stay put.“

“How long until you get here?”

“An hour… probably.” Kevin scoffed.

“I’ll be out by then.”

Kevin growled then. “ _Be careful_.”

Raiden pushed whatever was on top of him away, froze when it gave of a low, machine like sound that almost sounded like a whine. That definitely did not come from him. He forced his eyes open,  tried to blink away the dust and sand that made them water. A red light flickered on and off, another howl. He reached out, noticed the metal structure.

“…Wolf?” He barely remembered that the AI had tagged along for this mission. Now it was coming back to him what had happened. Wolf had warned him about something, then pushed him out of the way. Did the AI use its body to block the blow?

That was something he hadn’t expected. Wolf proved loyal and reliable, but risking his life for a cyborg seemed a bit over the top.

“Raiden-“ The AI managed to say. The voice distorted and full of static as the exoskeleton moved in a vain attempt to get up.

“How badly are you damaged?” The cyborg asked.

The reply took long enough for Raiden to question if the AI had shut down.

“Approx-tely… ninety… per-cent… of.. b-dy-“

Raiden cursed, shifted and managed to turn to the side. He got one leg free with the movement, the other was still stuck. Wolf’s body slipped off his torso and in an attempt to prevent any more damage to the AI, he wrapped his arms around it, before he used his free leg to try and shove whatever was blocking his other leg away. He quickly realized that had been a bad idea when sand and small stones rained down on them.

He sighed in annoyance, tried to get a better look at his companion in the darkness. Apart from the glowing eyes that kept flickering off, he couldn’t see much. His own visor was broken too, advanced vision wasn’t functioning.

The cyborg shook his head into the darkness once more and finally got his other leg free. A bright spark in the darkness made him squeeze his eyes shut. He was pretty sure that didn’t come from him, as an exposed wire would have definitely caused some more errors to pop up.

Once the light died down he opened his eyes again, getting fed up with being squeezed into such a tiny space with little to no room to move and a broken AI that was taking up even more space.

Minutes passed in silence, the ringing in his ears finally subsided. He almost wished it back. Wolf’s vain attempts at moving made terrible scratching noises.

“Stay still.” Raiden muttered.

The noises stopped. The cyborg almost felt guilty now. He hadn’t said it to keep the AI from damaging the body even more, he had said it so the noise would stop.

_Selfish._

“If…I c-ou-d mo-ve-“

“You can’t.” The man growled, wondered why he was so upset all of a sudden. The AI hadn’t done anything. In fact, Wolf had prevented him from sustaining any major injuries. When the howling noise returned for a second and Raiden felt himself cringe in sympathy, he realized why he was so pissed.

“Why did you push me out of the way?”

“I sim-ly… no.. t-me.”

“No time to warn me?” Raiden questioned.

“C-rrect-“

The cyborg tried to sit up, hit his head at what seemed to be a rock and slumped back down with an annoyed grunt. “Why would you do that?”

Wolf didn’t reply. Raiden wasn’t sure if he simply couldn’t or if he didn’t want to. Then the deafening silence was back. He figured it was time to get out, wherever they were. With no light to see anything, and nothing that could offer some light, he had no way to make out where he was and where he could go.

He slowly got to his feet, rose up carefully to prevent bumping into anything that could have been above him. He was almost surprised he managed to get to full height and even move around a bit before he hit something that blocked his way. It took him a few more minutes to find a path he had to get down to all fours to pass through it. That in itself didn’t bother him too much. He was concerned about transporting Wolf out of there.

For a second he contemplated leaving the AI, but the technology was too important to leave it for someone to find. He was surprised at his own thoughts, grimaced at them when he grabbed the AI’s body and pulled it through the opening.

He could hear water running and quickly decided that it was a better idea to carry the AI than to risk short circuiting it. He was fairly sure the AI itself was more or less fine, but without a body that operated like it was supposed to be it was likely that Wolf was depending on him, whether he’d actually voiced that or not.

Maybe he was sympathizing with the AI’s current situation. Being unable to control one’s own body was a terrifying experience.

There was static in his ears, cut off voices. The connection seemed to go bad.

He didn’t get very far from the place he had just escaped from until he heard people running around the sewers. They didn’t sound too friendly and Raiden preferred to stay out of a fight. His Blade was god knows where and he doubted he could find it in this darkness. He leaned against what seemed to be a wall, covered Wolf’s flickering eyes with one hand to keep them from attracting anyone. He hoped none of these people head infrared sensors.

He was proven wrong just seconds later. A flashlight blinded him and the time he needed to adjust was enough for them to surround him. Five of them, maybe more if they had back up.

They used guns.

He wasn’t sure why he shielded Wolf from the bullet that was fired at him, but soon noticed how stupid that move had been. He dumped the Ai’s body on a walkway that wasn’t flooded and charged in to get rid of the attackers. Even without the blade it only took mere seconds. They were all human, easily knocked out and shoved aside.

They looked like members of a gang too, not like people who had been looking for someone specific. They still had found him.

He shook his head, grabbed one of their flashlights and a gun, picked Wolf up again and tried to find out of the sewers. Soon enough he found an exit, wasn’t even surprised to surface in a dark alley. At least up here he could see properly and so he discarded the gun and the flashlight and called Courtney.

“I’m out. Where are you?”

“How- Nevermind. We’re close to your location, just head south.”

“Understood.” While he walked towards the location, Wolf began moving more frantically as if trying to get away.

“Calm down.” He hissed at the AI, “We’re out of the sewers, we’ll be with the others soon.”

The AI seemingly tried to say something but it was drowned in static. 

-

Raiden wasn’t entirely sure why he was sitting next to the rebooting AI, they had repaired most of the body and informed him that the AI’s Data had taken some sort of damage. While the cyborg didn’t know what to do with that information, he just stayed with the AI for reasons he didn’t fully understand.

They had disabled the movement of the body so Wolf couldn’t completely destroy anything that wasn’t repaired yet, the voice still wasn’t completely fixed either. Raiden caught himself thinking that it would have been nice to have a spare body for the AI.

The room he sat in looked more like a warehouse than something where exoskeletons were repaired. He knew the environments his bodies were fixed in, looked a lot friendlier. Usually. There were wired and cabled connected to the body of the AI, laptops showing readings that didn’t make sense to the cyborg. He had no idea about all this fancy stuff.

With a soft knock Courtney stepped into the room, had a few sheets of paper with her. “Aw,” She said with a smile. “That looks so cute.”

Raiden raised an eyebrow at her statement.

“It’s like you’re keeping watch over a sick friend.” She commented, put a coffee cup on a tiny side table and shoved her glasses up as she eyed Wolf closer. “He’s really out of it, isn’t he?”

“He’s awake.” Raiden crossed his arms and tipped the chair he was sitting on backwards a bit. “The voice is not working apparently.”

“That’s terrible…” she pouted as she crouched down to the ground and ran a hand over the cold armor of Wolf’s exoskeleton. Maybe it was to comfort the AI. “Why did no one fix that yet?”

“No spare parts.” Raiden told her.

“You’d expect they’d have spare parts for everything…”

The cyborg scoffed. “You know how often I need to wait weeks to get some replacements?”

The woman winced. “…Right… and AI’s don’t count as people…”

“Technically military cyborgs don’t either.”

Courtney hung her shoulders. “This mission really went bad… at least you didn’t get hurt too badly.”

Raiden grimaced but didn’t comment. He watched Courtney take her coffee and leave the room again, then he sat down next to the AI. He wasn’t sure if he was curious when he placed a hand on the head of the AI. There was a slight warmth coming from it, likely from the few parts that actually were working.

Something about the whole thing felt depressing.

“It sucks to be unable to move. I know.” He tried. He saw the red eyes flicker as if they tried to agree with him.

“’Least they don’t take you out of the body and leave you lying there for what feels like hours. That’s pretty scary shit.”

The eyes flickered once more.

Raiden leaned against the wall, shrugged. “Sometimes when they take too long I get really disoriented… all these feelings are there, but it’s so unreal. You probably have no idea what I’m talking about.”

 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place in the Tainted Souls AU.

John and Lisa stared at each other with a strange sort of excitement over the experiment Core was about to do. With both of them now having cybernetic parts, testing out how an Electromagnetic pulse would affect them, was both interesting and strangely exciting.

“You might wanna sit down, J.” Core smirked at John.

The teen rolled his eyes but sat down on the ground. He knew that his legs would give out, if the experiment worked as expected. Lisa smirked and grabbed the edge of the table. She too would be unable to stand properly if it worked.

“So, when are you gonna start the thing?” She asked impatiently.

Core typed into his laptop. “Just need to make a few adjustments so it won’t get too strong. Don’t want to affect the whole building.”

“Come on, Core. “Lisa complained. “That tiny thing can’t create a pulse that strong, besides, it’s for homework. They’d understand.”

“It would fry our parts.” John told her. “You might not be too affected, but I’d like my kidney working, you know?”

Lisa grimaced. “You sure it’s okay to test this then?”

John shrugged. “A few minutes won’t do too much damage.”

“If you say so…” She looked at him, sort of worried, but turned back to Core and impatiently jumped up and down.

“Okay.” Core said, “You two ready? Starting Experiment in, 3, 2, 1-“ Core pressed a button, setting the pulse free at the same time as the door opened and John’s father walked in.

“What’s with the sign on the do-“

“Dad no! Get out!” John screamed, and watched in horror as the man crumpled to the ground like a ragdoll.

“Turn it off! Turn it off!” The teen shouted at his friend, frustrated at the inability to use his legs. The pulse had worked, but now they had a problem. A very big problem.

Core cursed loudly. “It’s off.”

“Do something!” John shouted.

“Okay. I am doing something.” Core hissed as he grabbed john’s arms and pulled him over to the Cyborg on the ground.

John’s heart was hammering against his chest when he grabbed the shoulders of the unconscious man, shook him slightly.

“Core give me the laptop! Shit, shit, shit…”

The older of the two complied quickly, sat the laptop on the ground. Lisa had joined the two, was sitting next to John now, checking for life signs of the cyborg. “He’s completely out. Core that was too strong…”

“Of course it was. It shouldn’t have been able to take a cyborg out…!” Core whispered, face white as a sheet as he grabbed a few cords off the table with shaking hands.

“Well, your laptop was protected.” Lisa muttered.

“…Why did he even come in, the sign definitely said not to enter…”

John gazed up at the still open door, then sighed in frustration as he connected the cords to his father and the laptop. “Someone tore it apart…”

 Corse snarled angrily, stepped over the cyborg and left the room. “I can’t help with this anyway, I’ll go find a technician…”

Both Lisa and John growled. “We _are_ technicians.”

“Then… I just get something to drink…”

“Do that.” John hissed, jumped slightly when his father suddenly gasped and opened his eyes.

“It’s okay.” Lisa immediately reassured. “You were hit by an EMP, but everything is okay, the readings are a bit off, that’s normal. You’ll probably feel a bit lightheaded and dizzy.”

The man took a deep breath, squeezed his eyes shut and opened them against the bright lights once more. “…Don’t ever do that again…” he hissed, slowly pushed himself up and leaned against the wall.

“You weren’t supposed to be here…” John muttered silently, felt relieved and exhausted now that the unpleasant surprise was gone. “I’m sorry…”

“You walked in the moment Core started the experiment.” Lisa sighed. “Are you okay?”

The man nodded, ran a hand through his hair. “What about you two?”

John rolled his eyes. “We were part of that experiment. We wanted to see how it affected people with only partial enhancements… homework, in a way. I’m sorry, dad.”

Jack scoffed. “Now you also know how it affects full cyborgs.”

“That was scary!” John exclaimed.

“Of course it was. Scared the living daylights out of me.”

“How so? You passed out.” Lisa reminded him.

Jack grimaced. “First you can’t breathe, that’s scary on its own. Then you see a shitload of errors swarm your vision. Heart stops, legs give out. Then you pass out. Body shuts down, then reboots.”

John shivered. “That’s scary…”

“And dangerous.” Lisa muttered. “You sure you okay? I mean the readings are stable now, but-“

“Give me a bit.” The man sighed, watched his own trembling hands.


	7. Chapter 7

Rose hummed silently while she scrubbed the counters in the kitchen, some melody in her head that refused to go away. Usually she disliked that, but today it was a song she didn’t hate. It was almost nice to clean the kitchen. Almost. The sun had disappeared behind clouds a few minutes ago and she would have loved to just sit down with a cup of coffee and read a book. Also the smell of the cleaning detergent reminded her of the disinfectants they used in hospitals. Just what the hell had she bought?

Finally, after two hours she was done, almost made a show of how she washed out the sponges and cloths and hung them up in the laundry room so they could dry. Happy with her progress she decided to leave vacuuming for the next day  and was about to head into the living room when she saw her husband in the hallway, seemingly frozen to the stop, eyes staring at something that wasn’t there. She assumed he was thinking about something and so she waved to get his attention, but he didn’t react at all.

“Jack?” even after calling his name he hadn’t moved, just kept staring. A small shred of concerned surfaced inside her. Malfunctions? But he would have told her in some sort of way. When she placed a hand on his arm he snapped out of his thoughts, stared at her with wide eyes for a fraction of a second before he jumped backwards

“What?!” he yelled, surprised, confused.

“You spaced out.” She told him, tried to analyze his behavior. She had startled him, and now he kept staring at the kitchen. Surely he had wanted something from there, but he made no move to enter the room.

“…Sorry.” He almost whispered, his eyes again focused on something that didn’t exist.

Rose sighed, noticed the smell in the kitchen had spread into the hallway. She walked past him and opened the windows in the kitchen, looked back at him once that was done. “What’s up with you?”

He closed his eyes, lowered his head before he turned and leaned against the door frame. He still didn’t dare to enter the kitchen.

“The smell…” he muttered.

She opened her mouth to reply, but caught herself and thought about it for a moment longer. “Reminds you of something?”

“More or less…”

Rose grimaced. “Something you want to forget.” She stated dryly, now connected the pieces of what had happened in the past few minutes. 

“I guess.”

She leaned against the counter. “That was a flashback just now, wasn’t it?”

He lifted his head, a strange expression of defeat on his face. “Yeah…”

“Good.” She muttered to herself.

“Good?” he echoed in disbelief.

She smiled. “I was able to pull you out of it with a simple touch. That’s good, Jack.”

He rolled his eyes, started to relax now. “It wasn’t _that_ bad. The smell’s just terrible.”

“Lets talk about it.”

“Rose, No. not now.”

“Why not?” she asked, her voice that of a professional rather than his wife. How he hated it when she did that. But secretly he didn’t mind it too much. She wasn’t judging his strange memories and thoughts.

“It’s nothing, really. Just a small thing. It surprised me, that’s all.”

“Is it really just a small thing?”

“…you know how bad it can get.” He reminded her, hinted at something that had occurred not too long ago

 

 


	8. Chapter 8

The rain was driving her mad, but that was hardly the only thing that bugged her today. The new employee with the squeaking shoes that kept running back and forth down the hallway, the secretary opening and closing that ballpoint pen, the freaking door no one bothered to shut quietly. And the widn that kept slamming the raindrop at the windows as if it tried to underline the terrible feeling of dread she had everytime she glanced at her phone and found no new messages waiting for her.

“You’re on your phone an awful lot today.” A coworker mentioned with a soft knock to the opened door to her office. The woman was at least ten years older, a lot more experienced and definitely a very kind person.

Rose still felt guilty to be caught gazing at her phone. “I’m sorry.” She apologized. “Trouble at home.”

The blonde woman smiled knowingly and came closer. Instead of just placing the files she brought on Rose’s desk, she closed the door and sat down on the free chair in front of the desk. “it is hard, raising a child on your own.”

Rose frowned. “Who said that I’m raising him alone?”

The woman shrugged. “Rumors. There’s always some truth to it. And since I’ve only ever seen your boy and never a father, I was beginning to have assumptions, darling.”

Rose sighed, rested her hand in her head and closed her eyes. “Don’t worry about that.” She answered and glanced at her phone yet again.

“Did your boy get into trouble?”

“No.” Rose glanced at the clock. “He’s still in school. It’s my husband-“

“So you are married. What trouble did he get into? Something dangerous?”

Rose almost laughed. “Lets just say he got sick…”

“Then he should go to a doctor, shouldn’t he?”

Rose wanted to growl in annoyance. Yes her coworker was nice, but damn nosy. “There’s one on the way but he’s from the states, so that takes a while.”

“One from so far away? Why not try a local one?”

Rose sighed, opened a drawer and took a framed photograph out. She glanced at it for a moment before she handed it to the other woman. “…You see, my husband Is…-“

“A cyborg.”

Rose couldn’t tell if the woman was surprised or shocked, but she was prepared for that reaction. “Yes. That is why I am a little bit on edge at the moment.”

The woman handed the picture back to Rose and looked at her with wide eyes. “Why are you still here, darling? Go home…”

“I was planning on that if he didn’t respond until ten…”

 


	9. Chapter 9

Rose almost screamed when she brought the trash out and found a basket next to the front door. For a second she thought John might have left toys in there, but then she noticed that the basket held a baby inside.  It was sleeping, neatly dressed and covered with a blanket. There was a plastic bag sitting next to the basket, filled with baby food, a letter, a change of clothing for the baby and two bottles filled with milk. They were still warm.

“Jack!” Rose hissed into the hallway as she crouched down and grabbed the basket and the plastic bag. By the time she had headed inside again and closed the front door, her husband was standing in the doorway to the living room, shooting her questioning glances.

“What… is that?” he pointed to the basket, confused and shocked.

Rose took a deep breath. She was shaking. “I don’t know… There’s a letter…” she held out the plastic bag to him and walked into the living room.

 _‘You don’t know me, but I know you have a child. I am sure this child will be treated with care and love at your place. I have included everything you need for the evening. Please take care of this child, as I cannot.’_ Jack read aloud.

He frowned, settled down next to Rose who had already taken the baby out of the basket and held it in her arm.

“…Why would someone do this…?” She whispered more to herself than to her husband.

“What do we do now?” Jack asked as he reached into the plastic bag again, pulled out the bottles and everything else. “…They really must’ve been sure that we take care of it, right?”

Rose looked at him, nodded slightly. “Let’s wait until tomorrow… maybe someone comes back for it.”

“And then?”

“Police… Orphanag-“ Rose stopped herself when her husband’s expression changed.

“…You want to-” he hung his shoulders.

Rose gazed at him for a moment, then sighed. “Jack, someone obviously abandoned this baby.”

“And wanted us to take care of it.” He handed her the letter.

“I know, but… we can’t.”

He blew some stray strands of hair out of his face, shook his head to himself. “…This is unbelievable.”

“I agree…” Rose muttered as she got up again and handed the baby to her husband. “This baby needs to sleep somewhere tonight. We can think about what to do tomorrow.”

He took the baby as if it was the most delicate thing in the world, as if it would break at the tiniest touch.

“Jack, you need to hold it properly…” Rose sighed, moved his arms in the right way and shook her head. “There. Have you never held a baby before?”

The glare he gave her made her grimace. “Don’t give me that look.” She complained.

“…What if I break it…?”

“You can’t break a baby if you handle it properly.” Rose muttered, gathered the woolen blankets from the couch and spread them on the ground to make a makeshift bed for the baby. “I think I have a sleeping bag of John in one of the boxes in the attic…” She muttered to herself.

“Sunny… was the closest I ever got to hold a baby…” Jack told her then. “And she was… not your average three year old.”

Rose smiled at him. “It’s okay. It’s not that hard. But why would anyone abandon a child  and bring it to someone’s house…”

“At least they made sure someone found it.” Jack grumbled, froze for a second as the baby in his arms moved. He stared at it, it wide eyes, ready to give it to Rose should it move any more than it was.

“Jack…” Rose sighed in amusement. “You act as if it could eat you…”

“It’s not that…” he whispered, eyes not moving away from the baby. “It’s… so small… Sunny was small too, but different.”

“I’d assume this baby is about half a year old. John was about that size.”

“How do you know…?”

Rose shrugged. “Mother instincts?”

He gave her a doubtful look and held his breath when the baby began fidgeting and complaining. Rose opened up one of the bottles and handed it to him. “It’s probably hungry.”

He reached for the bottle, almost dropped it. Rose held it until she was sure he was holding it, then turned back to the blankets on the ground. When she glanced at her husband, there was a strange feeling spreading inside her. Seeing him feed a baby made her feel guilty for what she had done to him nine years ago.

She stopped altogether when his lips turned to a fine line and he blinked tears away. “Jack?” she asked silently. “I can take it-“

He shook his head. Rose could see how hard he tried to battle the tears, but didn’t completely understand why. Was this something so special that it made him show these emotions? Was he upset? Happy? She couldn’t tell. Yet, at that moment she knew that they would have a fourth member in the family. There was no way she would get Jack to give this baby up, even if he would never say it. She knew he wouldn’t want to let go of it.

She reached for the basket, took out the bedding in search of some information about the baby but only found a small note that read _‘Please take care of me.’_

“I wonder if it’s a boy or a girl.” She silently said then, both because she was curious and to distract her husband from whatever train of thoughts he had gotten in to.

“I don’t know.”

Rose scrunched up her nose as she was trying to think of an answer. “It needs a name.”

Jack looked up, his eyes filled with a strange excitement. “We’re keeping it?”

The woman laughed. “Jack this isn’t a pet.”

“I know.” He tried to pout, something Rose winced at. It was one of the very subtle movements that didn’t quite work with the artificial part of his mouth, making it look somewhat grotesque and out of place. She remembered how John had started crying because of it once.

When the baby was fed Rose instructed her husband to get one of the boxes with John’s baby clothing, dressed the baby in sleep clothing and made sure that the makeshift bedding was as safe as it could be. When she settled down on the couch with her own blanket Jack only lifted his eyebrows. “You’re not sleeping in the bedroom.” He noted.

“I’d like to keep an eye on it.” She answered.

He only nodded, put the bottle on the table when it was empty and the babies eyes opened. They were a bright blue, looked so innocent. He barely noticed that he had reached out to the baby, soon found his index finger gripped by a tiny hand. A bright smile crossed over the baby’s features and he couldn’t help but stare.

Rose gently played a hand on his arm, rubbed it slightly. “Jack…”

He turned to her, was slightly confused when Rose ran her thumbs over his cheeks. “Why are you crying?”

He hadn’t realized, quickly wiped the tears away with his shoulders. “Sorry…”

 

 


End file.
